IT is so much duller, now there's less use of hammers...
I hate working in IT, hate it with a passion, especially since it all became so incredibly dull and mundane. Back when all of this was just fields and the internet was still but a wet dream, real computers needed hammers. My first field service toolkit contained a large rubber headed hammer. It was for fixing the 40MB hard drive of new fangled 286 desktop. The disks were faulty, because the lubricant for the heads would seize up when cold, which happened if people turned the thing off overnight. Solution, switch it on, leave it 5 mins to start warming up a bit and hit the case with the hammer. Head frees up, disk works. You could fix it by dropping the PC a couple of inches to get the same jolt, but the hammer was so much more satisfying.

The other hammer application was on a very old server, a Ferranti Argus, for the nerds. It had teletype terminals instead of screens, Joe 90 reel to reel half-inch tape units on the front, hexadecimal keypads for programming startup registers and lots of flashing lights. This controlled the Command and Control system for a police force, so it was a dual system, with disks controlled by one CPU and the other on hot-standby. The change over was by magnetic relays, which, if they hadn't been tested in a while, would stick, hence the inclusion of a little hook on the rear door of the system with a handy hammer hanging from it to beat the relays until the all clunked over.

The bastard IT Support, got my MCSE from a cornflake packet, 'Engineers', can barely even wield a screwdriver nowadays, let alone a hammer. Pussies.
(lardyboy Next stop, Fissplap Central, Fri 25 Sep 2009, 13:14, 9 replies)

Clicked
For these fine examples of art of Percussive Maintenance.
(The Incredible Sulk Finally remembered his password on, Fri 25 Sep 2009, 13:24, closed)

We still have the hammer
It has a label on it, "Mr Thumpy 001"

Nowadays the computers are so much cleverer that is suffices just to threaten them with it...
( chthonic, Fri 25 Sep 2009, 13:38, closed)

My father has a wonderfully useful hammer
it's extremely heavy, and is known as the "gentle persuader".

All true vocations can and should involve one.
( Mockingbird Practitioner of SCIENCE, Fri 25 Sep 2009, 14:04, closed)

My hammer
I like 'Mr Thumpy' and (especially) the 'Gentle Persuader', but mine is known as the 'Scottish adjusting tool.' Gremlins are terrified into submission by the sight of it, but sometimes it gets carried away and things get broken.
( Scrumper, Fri 25 Sep 2009, 14:43, closed)

Which reminds me
my g/f's office has a crowbar in the corner labelled "Office Master Key"
( chthonic, Mon 28 Sep 2009, 14:32, closed)

LART
Used to work in a very geeky office of sys admins, they had a great big stick called the LART - lUser Attitude Readjustment Tool.
(lardyboy Next stop, Fissplap Central, Mon 28 Sep 2009, 14:59, closed)

Took a mate of mine...
about 3 months working with the other bike techs to realise that the "Polish Multi-tool" that they kept talking about was in fact a large lump mallet. Amused me.
(poikes Bored sig, Fri 25 Sep 2009, 16:37, closed)

The tool I use for Impact enginering..
is labeled "Master Reset". never fails.
( CQ Knows the truth, all of it., Fri 25 Sep 2009, 17:47, closed)

In my day we used axes.

(Seance Trumpet has got no beef with a man enjoying a croissant, Sun 27 Sep 2009, 23:24, closed)